


We Are Just Going Home (It Is Hard To Do These Things Alone)

by fuckyeahdeafandasexual



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Asexual Bruce Banner, Asexual Character, Gen, Homophobia, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Jotunn | Frost Giant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Original Character(s), Queer Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 10:38:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16135505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuckyeahdeafandasexual/pseuds/fuckyeahdeafandasexual
Summary: Aboard The Statesman, Bruce and the Asgardian refugees travel to their new home.A journey.An adventure.





	We Are Just Going Home (It Is Hard To Do These Things Alone)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wormdelivre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wormdelivre/gifts).



> This fic is a fucking mess, but it's my mess. Worries for later. Enjoy!

Bruce stared at the children in front of him, wondering what he got himself into. They were staring right back at him. Insecurity creeped up over him. None of his seven phd's had prepared him for this. He had always liked kids. But this were fifty-one children, all traumatized, robbed of their parents, some even of their brothers and sisters. Orphans. Just like him. Without a homeland. Just a spaceship that wasn't designed to house three hundred refugees. No older than the Asgardian age of thirteen or fourteen.

But he had needed a distraction from all the chaos, so he had volunteered when Heimdall had asked someone to do something with the orphan children. They couldn't be in the way of the adults who were inspecting the ship and the provisions and doing other important things.

They were sitting in the mess hall.

Maybe. Maybe he could tell a story? Nothing too violent. Nothing with dead parents, which crossed Lion King and Tarzan out. Maybe he could try Dumbo. Though it was a long time since he had seen that movie so he couldn't really remember the plot of the movie. But the kids didn't know that.

So he started telling about how the storks carried all the baby animals to their mothers. Which led to explaining about all the different animals on Earth. Tigers, kangaroos, hippopotamuses, elephants and ostriches and other exotic animals. The older kids had found some sort of space crayons in the cargo so they started to draw the animals on the floor and the walls. The mess hall was much more colorful after the story was done. It was just in time for dinner. The first adults entered the room and looked curious at the drawings.

Bruce dismissed the children and walked to what was considered the King's table, in the middle of the hall. Loki and Valkyrie were already seated at the table. Another guy was at the table too. His hair was short cropped, a fashion unlike Bruce had seen on the other Asgardian people. Except for Thor, everyone, man and woman, wore their hair long, sometimes even with braids.

Loki introduced him as Stigandr. A student of their mother, Frigga, and a youth friend of Loki and Thor. A skilled magician, or as Loki liked to call it, a seidrmaster.

"I am nowhere near as skilled as you," Stigandr protested immediately and Loki rolled his eyes. "An he's a librarian and an actor, so I am sure you two will have plenty to talk about. Both of you being science or magic nerds and all that."

"Says the biggest nerd of us all," Valkyrie mumbled loudly in her cup of whatever she was drinking. Loki gave her a light push and she pushed him back.

"I would like to help with the kids, since there isn't much work for me on this ship," Stigandr offered.

Bruce smiled. "It would be good to have help, fifty kids is a bit too much for me alone."

"So you are teaching them?"

"Yeah. Kinda, I guess. I try to keep it fun, though. Combine it with a story."

Bruce and Stigandr discussed some plans what to do in the following days.

It turned out that Stigandr (and after some pressing, Loki too) had copied books from the Library for years for personal use. Bruce looked through some, and marveled at the layout and the pictures. The written language was probably some variation of Old Norse. Which turned to Bruce questioning Loki and Stigandr about the workings of the Allspeak.

Valkyrie huffed and went to another table to have a 'normal' conversation. Just as she left, Thor and Heimdall arrived at the table, talking about how the day had gone.

"I see your first day has gone really well, Bruce," Thor said while looking at the drawings of the animals and shoving food in his mouth,"

"Manners, you oaf," Loki berated. To which Thor threw a spoonful of food in Loki's direction. Loki ducked away skillfully.

"Some things never change, huh," Stigandr smiled.

"Wait you knew them as kids?" Bruce wondered, "What were they like?"

"Just as little brats as they are now," Stigandr answered and Heimdall nodded.

"Like that time Thor left the palace to go live in the woods and wanted to  become a goat farmer?"

"Yeah," Heimdall grinned, "What were you like? Only 350 years old?"

"In my defense, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr were the most adorable animals,"

"They were not!" Loki protested, "they always bit me and chewed on my clothes!"

"Mine too," Stigandr agreed, "probably everyone's but you and Odin. Those goats were horrible. You just liked to ride them everywhere."

Bruce laughed. They kept going for a while, comparing childhood stories, until it was time to go to sleep.

 

****

 

Over the next days they set up a routine. In the morning Stigandr learned the younger children to read and write in Asgardian. Bruce did the same with the older children but in English. In the afternoon Bruce would them a story, mostly based on a Disney movie he remembered, combined it with a lesson about Earth.

Brave was combined with Earth's general history, like the invention of the car and the internet. Mulan with a lesson about the all the different countries and cultures Earth had. Finding Nemo was about the aquatic animals and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

(Bruce would have loved to tell them Finding Dory too.)

Sometimes they played games instead like The Floor is Lava or Tag. Hearing those children laugh and seeing them play so careless without worries was a beautiful thing. The children started to trust Bruce more and more and opened up to him. At times the younger children liked to be carried or climbed in his lap. The older children came to him when they had a problem. And they learned him how toplay Tafl, some kind of chess.

He started to learn their names, too. Classic Old Norse names he couldn't always pronounce correctly and it made the children giggle. There was also this girl, Bruce settled on Maddie as her name, who had a great potential to become a seidrmaster, according to Stigandr. She was only 11 years old and very shy. Bruce tried to talk to her but not with much luck.

Bruce asked Heimdall about her, because he seemed to know everyone on the ship. It turned out that Maddie had been an orphan her whole life. The identity of her parents was unknown. There were rumors that her foster mother, who had died in the final battle, had known the name of her mother, but had kept it a secret in exchange for money that came from somewhere.

"She is probably an illegitimate child," Heimdall guessed, "and her family didn't want to acknowledge her. They are probably all dead, too."

"That's so fucked up," Bruce sighed. Heimdall hummed in agreement.

They stared at the stars for a while, enjoying the view of wide endless space before them, before Bruce decided it was time to go back to his class.

 

****

 

Days became months. They still had a long way to go to Earth. The journey could easily take another six months. Maybe even seven. Everything had to be rationed, from water to food. Showering had to be done with some dry chemical stuff. Bruce hated it and the kids even more. It was always a chore to persuade them to shower.

Maddie finally gave in after some coaxing from Stigandr and accepted the seidr lessons. Even Loki jumped in from time to time to teach some more advanced things.

Life went on. Slowly people got over the loss of their loved ones, and new families were founded.

One morning Valkyrie came to find him in the sleeping quarters he shared with Loki, Thor, Heimdall and Stigandr. It was crowded, only four beds four five people, meaning they took turns sleeping on the floor on a pile of leftover blankets. 

"Bruce, you were a Healer on Midgard, right?" she asked him. Bruce nodded briefly, not entirely awake yet. He missed coffee.

"Kinda, yeah. Is someone sick?"

"Not sick. Pregnant."

Oh. Woah.

"Stigandr and me can maybe improvise a Soul Forge," Loki offered.

"We can?" a muffled voice came from the pile of blankets above Bruce. None of them were morning people, except for Loki and Heimdall. The latest wasn't even in the room, he must have risen early to wake the people who were on breakfast shift.

"Yes," Loki shot back and prodded the unmoving pile, "Rise and shine, motherfucker."

"You too, Thor," and he prodded the other remaining sleephead.

"Five more minutes, mom," Loki rolled his eyes and sighed.

"I will bring you guys breakfast." Valkyrie smiled, "Tea?"

"Yeah, thanks," Bruce yawned and started looking for his day clothes and putted them on, not really caring about the others. Living with so many people in close quarters did put another perspective on privacy.

Valkyrie was already waiting with their breakfast and teas in the small med bay. She went to get Bruce's patient while they ate their food and Loki and Stigandr started working on the Soul Forge.

It was kind like an advanced magical X-ray that floated above the table. Loki explained the basic workings and showed how he could manipulate the soul forge to zoom in on certain details or could read medical conditions.

Bruce washed his hands with the chemical shower stuffto get them clean. He looked in the few cabinets for medical tools he could use. He found a few gloves that fit him. A tape measure. And something that ressembled a pinard horn to listen to the baby's heartbeat.

Valkyrie came in with the pregnant woman. She looked nervous.

"Hello, I am Bruce," he introduced himself. She smiled shyly back and shook the hand he offered.

"Solveig,"

And then she noticed Loki and Stigandr standing in themed bay and froze, her smile dissapearing of her face.

"I don't want him here," Solveig said with an icy voice.

Bruce thought she meant Loki, but then he saw her looking at Stigandr with a hateful look. What.

"He will stay," Loki said immediately, looking ready to fight. Bruce could cut the tension in the air and he felt the Hulk roar inside him. Not now.

"Everyone out,"he ordered. "Now."

Loki looked like he was gonna fight Bruce too, but Bruce let his eyes flash green, to show Loki why. He couldn't have a Hulk in a med bay with a pregnant woman, even if said woman was Asgardian. Loki nodded bruskly and followed Stigandr and Valkyrie out of the med bay. He would ask them later what this was all about.

"I will wait outside for you," Valkyrie said to Solveig and then she closed the door. Alright. Bruce took a deep breath and then gestured for Solveig to sit on the examination table. It was years ago, before the Avengers Assembled in New York, that he had done these kind of examinations.

"Is this your first pregnancy?" Bruce asked her aftershe had readied herself on the table, her stomach bare. She was already showing a bit. He estimated the pregnancy to be three months along.

"Yes," Solveig nodded. And Bruce realized how young she must be. Somewhere in the beginning of her Asgardian twenties.

"It's all gonna be okay," he reassured her.

After a couple of tests and questions he concluded both the mother and baby were healthy. He explained her what she could eat and drink and do and what not and then let her go with Valkyrie. He cleaned the med bay and went looking for Loki and Stigandr. It was still early in the morning, so they had some time before the orphans daycare started.

He found them in the cockpit. Loki still looking like he wanted to fight someone. Stigandr just looked outside the windows. Bruce decided to cut right to the chase. "Care to explain what that was?"

"It's this goddamn society," Loki muttered.

"I am ergi," Stigandr said.

Bruce stared at him. "Ergi? What does that mean?"

"You midgardians call it 'queer'," Loki elaborated, "On Asgard it is considered very unmanly and the worst shame for a family,"

"I got disowned by my family when I was 500 year or something, a mere boy, pushed on the streets to fend after myself."

"So Asgardians are homophobic?" Bruce tried out slowly, still wrapping his brain around this new information."

"Yeah," Loki sighes, "Luckily, my mother, Frigga, was from Vanaheim, so she didn't shared those beliefs and raised Thor and me to believe differently."

"It was her that saved me from death, hanging from that tree, and took me in to protect me from my attackers.

And Stigandr showed Bruce his neck where those scarred lines were. Bruce had noticed them before, and wondered, but never dared to ask. He shivered. To almost meet death like that.

"She gave me a job in the library and even founded a theatre for me where I could bring my passion to life. Learned me how to use my seidr."

"I remember that she and father fought for days after she rescued you," Loki interjected, "because she wanted him to make it illegal to murder someone because they were ergi. She succeeded, but she could never change the beliefs of Asgard, rigid and frozen in their ways."

"I wish I could have met her," Bruce whispers softly,

"she sounded like a wonderful Queen."

"Yeah, she was amazing," Stigandr nodded. They kept silent for a while, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence.

"Ah, here are you! The children are asking after you!" Thors voice boomed through the cockpit and made them all flinch.

"Thank you, Thor. We will be on our way." Stigandr and he went to the mess hall, but before they arrived he pulled Stigandr aside.

"Hey, listen, if anyone ever gives you bullshit again come looking for me, okay? Us, queers, need to stick together." Stigandr frowned, but seemed to understand it.

"So... you are... you are ergi, too?"

"I guess I am. But it's not unmanly, Stigandr. On my planet, Earth, there are so many people like us. We are not accepted in every country, but we have rights in many. We can have children. We can marry."

"Really?" Stigandr looked like he could cry every moment now. Bruce feared that he had dumped a bit too much at the same time on the guy.

"Yes," Bruce smiled encouragingly and squeezed his shoulder.

"Now, I think we got some kids to teach and entertain."

"Yeah. Yeah." Stigandr sniffed a bit, but then regained his composure, "We do."

 

****

 

Later they sat on my Bruce's bed, backs against the wall. Dinner was done and after a long day with the children, neither of them had had the energy to stay in the busy and loud mess hall.

Nobody but them was in their quarters so Bruce talked a bit about his own experiences in the queer community. All the different identities that were under the queer umbrella. The three times he had walked in a pride, long before he was a well known scientist. He had been just a college student. How his world was so different then, so carefree. And then he had met Betty. And her father. Who had invited him for the supersoldier experiment.

And everything went to hell.

"So," Stigandr said, softly rousing Bruce from his thoughts. "Which do you identify as?"

"Hmmm? I am asexual."

"The one where you are not sexually attracted to people?"

"Yeah. And panromantic."

"People, not genders?"

"Hmmm."

It felt freeing, talking about this. Coming out without any pressure. Bruce had come out of the closet before, of course. Betty was the first person he ever told. Later there was Tony. And Pepper. Natasha figured it out in her own way.

But like this? It felt good.

"Can I ask you something?" Bruce had wondered about it from the beginning.

"Yes?"

"Why do you wear your hair short? Is it a statement of some kind?"

"Ergi people aren't allowed to wear their hair long. We are not worthy of it."

Just as Bruce thought it couldn't be any worse, it actually got worse.

"It's actually getting longer now. I should cut it soon." Stigandr mumbled while he ruffled through his hair.

"Why not let it grow? Would they force you to cut it?"

"Pretty much, yeah,"

"Well then they should go through the Hulk first."

Stigandr giggled.

"I mean it."

"Thank you, Bruce."

"What do they think of me then? And Thor?"

"Midgardians are different. They don't hold you to our standard. But for, Thor, I don't know. I think many people belief he is so brave for having undergone such torture."

"Torture?"

"Well, mental torture."

"Still sounds a bit much,"

"The people of Asgard have a knack for dramatics then, I suppose."

"You can say that." Bruce mumbled and he couldn't suppress a yawn. Dear god, he was pretty tired.

"I will let you sleep," Stigandr started move towards the stairs to get down. It was his time tonight to sleep on the floor.

"You can sleep in this bed." Bruce offered, "I know the floor isn't comfortable even with that many blankets. I trust you."

"Really?"

"Yes. Go grab a pillow and blankets and come up here again."

Stigandr was back fast and after changing in their night clothes, they arranged their bodies so they could sleep with their heads at the other's feet.

They talked for a while, discussing ideas for their classes in the following days and played tafl, until the others came in the room and everyone went to sleep.

 

****

 

They were already eight months on this ship and still had three more to go. Solveig wasn't his only pregnant patient anymore. Four others had come to visit him for check-ups.

He had started to worry about Solveig and her baby. First they had to cut down the rations a bit so the pregnant women would have enough nutrients to feed them and their babies with. And Solveig would certainly go in labor a week or two before they reached Earth. He would have to deliver a baby on this ship, without the equipment he was used to. The med bay was certainly not as sterile as he would like it. He feared for infections for both the mother and the baby during the childbirth.

Loki and Stigandr had consulted their books on something that could help Bruce, but except for some medical spells, like anasthesia, there was not much.

And then there was Maddie. She had thrown herself into studying her seidr, learning more and more spells.

Loki had taken over her classes completely, which didn't bother Stigandr. According to him, Loki's methods were better suited to teach her.And Loki was a good teacher. Bruce sometimes observed Maddie and him. Loki was very patient with her, explaining the spells over and over again, and answering her endless stream of questions.

Maddie was indeed very smart. She reminded Bruce a lot of Tony. A young and curious Tony. Sadly, due to her advanced learning and her use of seidr the other children had started to push her away, excluding her from their games.

Children could be so cruel.

The final straw was when two of the oldest kids locked Maddie in the airlock. It had happened during the night. They found her only in the morning, after breakfast. Loki had come to them, confused as to why Maddie hadn't come to him for her classes yet. It had been Valkyrie and Korg who found her.

Luckily, the airlock had been secured with a password consisting of five random numbers. And the kids had given up after a few tries.

Bruce didn't want to think what he would have done if they had succeeded into opening the space side of the airlock.  He knew he would never forget the way Maddie, ice cold and only dressed in her short night gown, cried against his chest. Red blood dried on the inside of her legs.

Oh Maddie.

They moved her stuff in their quarters.

It wasn't much.

Two blankets and a pillow and a couple of wooden tafl pieces.

The first two days she didn't left Bruce and Stiganders bed, still in shock of being locked in the airlock and having menstruated for the first time.

Bruce refused to go to his daycare for a week, angry but also afraid that he would Hulk out upon seeing those kids. He just sat in the bed with Maddie, looking over her while she slept. Read to her. Played countless games of tafl.

Loki often joined them, obviously neglecting his other duties on the ship, but none of them cared. Heimdall got a couple of blankets from somewhere and crafted a sturdy hammock between the two bunks against the wall.

Maddie loved it, but sometimes she still crawled in Bruce's or Loki's bed after a really bad nightmare. Life went slowly back to normal. As normal as could be on a spaceship with three hundred refugees. Or so Bruce thought.

Two days after Bruce had gone back to the daycare, leaving Maddie behind in the capable hands of Loki and Heimdall, Thor came running in the mess hall.

"Bruce! Stigandr! Loki needs you! Med bay! Now!"

At first, Bruce thought something had happened to Maddie. Or Solveig. But it was Loki himself.

He laid unconscious on the examination table. Blood was running out of his nose. The blood was blue. Blue. Why was it blue?

"Norns! Loki!"

"What happened?" he asked.

"His seidr core is depleted. I warned him this could happen! The idiot!" Stigandr yelled and he started to run diagnostics on Loki's body through some spells.

"Is he gonna die?" Maddie asked.

Valkyrie hushed her, "Let them do their job, Maddie. Come on, why don't we go somewhere else where we -"

"No. No. No," Maddie protested heavily. Eventually Valkyrie had to pick her up and carry her out of the med bay.

"What can I do?"

"I am gonna take the glamour off his body," Stigandr explained, "don't touch him until he has calmed down, otherwise he's gonna give you frostbite,"

"O-okay," Bruce wasn't sure what expect. He knew Loki was adopted, but-

Oh.

Loki's body turned completely blue with light blue markings. He was an alien. Which was ridiculous since Asgardians were aliens too, but still.

Loki awaked, gasping for air and Bruce felt the temperature in the room drop more than a few degrees. Hulk didn't like it either. Loki groaned painfully and tried to sit up but Stigandr pushed him down.

"No way. Just lay still on here," Light skin flashed over the blue, but dissapeared fast again.

"And don't use your seidr! Your core is depleted! If you die now, Thor will kill me!"

"No! Let me-"

"Forget it!" Stigandr yelled, "And, Norns, calm down, will you?! You are freezing the med bay!"

"I can't!"

Bruce decided it was time to step in.

"Loki? Can you listen to me?"

He stepped a bit closer to the table, but did keep his distance. Hulk wouldn't like frostbite. Loki refused to look at him, keeping his ruby eyes on the floor, but Bruce knew he was listening. Bruce talked him in a soft voice through some breaking excercises. Stigandr started working on something, muttering some spells and tapping on a bracelet. Slowly it started becoming warmer.

"Alright," Stigandr nodded when Loki was relaxed enough, "I know you really hate this, so I made you this," and he held out the bracelet for Loki to put on.

"It's a compromise. Nothing much, just a glamour for Aesir skin that taps into your seidr. And only for day use,"

"Thank you," Loki mumbled. He shoved it on his wrist, and his skin turned a white pale again, the markings and red eyes disseapearing.

"Go rest, I will talk to anyone who has questions. Bruce, will you please bring him to our quarters?"

Bruce had many questions but decided he could better shut up for now.

"Yeah, sure,"

He guided Loki to their room. The guy looked like he could fall over any minute.

"No questions?" Loki asked curiously, while he crawled into his bed.

Bruce chuckled, "You can answer them later. Sleep now."

And he watched how Loki fell asleep. Maddie walked not long after in the room.

"Is he gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, he will be," Bruce smiled comforting. "He just need a lot of rest,"

"Okay," Maddie nodded, "Will you please tell me a story?"

Bruce laughed "Mulan, again?"

"Yes! Please?"

"Of course, Maddie"

 

****

 

Loki slept for two days straight. Huddled under a blanket so nobody could see his blue skin at night. Maddie mostly sat next to his bed, reading books and practising her spells. Thor walked in to check on his brother in between his duties, bringing him water and food. Dodging the occasional knife now and then.

Stigandr kept checking Loki's seidr core. It had started to replenish itself at a slow rate. It would be the same amount in a month, as long as Loki didn't use his seidr during that time.

Not being allowed to use his seidr made Loki a very grumpy God of Chaos. And they still had two months to go. Joy.

They all took over some of Loki's duties. Stigandr started teaching Maddie again, picking up where Loki left. Bruce helped Heimdall and Thor with plotting their course to Earth. The maps aboard The Statesman were quite detailed. Even Earth's neighbour planets were named, though it were the intergalactic names. Earth was named Terra.

That was how Bruce learned about the Nova Corps and how they had forbidden any intergalactic contact with people on Earth to protect the young planet.

"But we already know about aliens? Since Loki invaded us with The Chitauri?" Bruce wondered, "And what about you Asgardians?"

"Midgard is also part of the Nine Realms, ruled by the King of Asgard. It's him who has the final say over your planet in intergalactic talks." Heimdall explained, "Maybe it would be wise indeed to ask Nova Corps to make an end on the embargo."

"Aye," Thor nodded, "but first, let us make sure we reach Midgard."

It was a challenge indeed. The ship wasn't designed to make such a far journey.

A month before they would reach Earth, one of the three engines died.

Loki, who just was allowed the use of his seidr back, tried to cool the overheated parts down with his ice powers, but the engine didn't want to start up again.

And then one of the woman pulled Bruce's sleeve and told him Solveig's water had broken. He didn't remember much from that day after that. It was all a blur. He just remembered a lot of blood, screaming and crying and the baby. The baby. Which turned out to be a boy and in good health.

Bruce passed out in bed after that and slept for fourteen hours. He woke up to blood dried to his clothing, hands and his face. It took him a whole hour in the chemic shower to get it off him. The clothes had been a lost cause so Heimdall got him new ones which were a bit too large. Bruce didn't dare to ask where he got them. At least they were mostly clean.

He was getting tired of the Asgardian fashion, missing his usual shirts and jeans and comfortable clothing.

He showed up at the naming ceremony, the boy was named Hjalmar, and checked in with Solveig. After that he crawled back in his bed. He just wanted to go home. He just wanted to let Hulk take over for the rest of the journey and wake up again and be on Earth. One night, he couldn't sleep anymore, and he hidhimself in the cockpit so he wouldn't wake Stigandr or the others. Stared at the stars. Loki came to seek him.

Bruce had noticed the guy had been troubled by something ever since his seidr almost had depleted. He slept less. Almost never finished his meals.

"I promised you to get your answers and since we both can't sleep, we might as well do this now, no?" Loki grimaced.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," Bruce protested.

"I insist," Loki said, "You deserve to understand,"

He slowly took the bracelet off.

The blue skin creeped over his body, showing those light blue lines Bruce saw earlier in the med bay. It looked fascinating. Loki's red eyes looked uncertain.

"It is weird to live in the skin of the Jötnar and consider it my own. When I just discovered the truth, I was young and foolish. We were raised to see the Jötnar as nothing more than monsters and savages and hate them. To slay them was an honor. And then everything changed. I was a monster myself. It has taken some time to accept this new identity. I haven't completely accomplished that task yet. But every day is a new day."

The Jötnar," and Loki hesitated. Bruce didn't say anything, hoping his silence would give Loki the light push he needed to continue. "I haven't told anyone about this. Not Thor. Not even Stigandr. Maybe Heimdall or Valkyrie knows. The Jötnar are a one-gendered race. There are no men or women."

They are an intersexual species," Bruce realized, "both male and female reproductive systems, right?"

Loki flinched lightly, "Yes, indeed." And then. "It's like all these puzzle pieces are finally falling together. When I was much younger, just a child, and just learned to create illusions, I loved it to walk around as a girl for days. I never showed anyone else, except my mother. I never understood why me. Why that urge. I was so scared what other people would say if they realized. It wasn't all the time. Like waves, it came and went. I know people called me ergi behind my back, because of the seidr, but I was a prince. But pretending to be a girl was so much worse. You know how they treated Stigandr, just because he liked guys. What would the people of Asgard do if they knew if their prince would reject his maleness and be a girl? What will they do now if they discover what I truly am?"

Bruce got up from his seat and kneeled in front of Loki.

"They will do nothing, because they will need to get past the Hulk and me first. You have a family now, and we care about you,"

"Really?" Loki's voice sounds like he's on the verge of crying.

"Yes," and then Bruce gets up to embrace Loki in a hug. It's a bit awkward with Loki being seated.

"You give good hugs,"

"I have experience," Bruce smiles, and then his heart ages for Tony. He misses his friends. But it won't be long now. Just a week until they reached Pluto.

 

****

 

Of course it's the middle of the night when Heimdall wakes them all up, to announce he can see finally Pluto. Bruce is out of bed before Heimdall can finish talking, not even bothering to put actual clothes on. Pluto looks beautiful full of colors,  it is a goddamn planet fuck you nasa, and he really needs something to record what he is seeing now to show to everyone when they arrive on earth-

"Bruce! Sit down, please, before you faint and fall on your head! Stigandr pushed him in one of the pilot seats. Thor walked in with a sleepy Maddie on his shoulders. He dropped her careful in Bruce's lap but Bruce only had eyes for the planet that they are slowly passing by.

It. Is. So. Beautiful. And now, for the first time, he realized that he is actually seeing this. The first human being to actually be this close to Pluto. The first human being to have been this far in space.

"I activated the monitors to gather as much information as possible," Heimdall smiled. He patted Bruce's shoulder and then left the cockpit to go to bed. Thor left too, yawning widely. Only Loki, Maddie and Stigandr stayed with him.

Maddie asked about the other planets, though Bruce has told her already ten times or more.

Neptune, Uranus and Jupiter were already very visible. Mars was a smaller, red speck and then there was blue one next to to it.

Midgard.

Terra.

Earth.

Home.

 


End file.
